I’ve been slack­ing on these sta­tus updates, and I just read Dee Car­ney’s which inspired me to get back into it! Thanks, Dee. Also, I real­ized I haven’t post­ed a RT Con­fer­ence update! I’ll do that soon too, but until then you can look through my pic­tures on Flickr. New Orleans was amaz­ing, you guys. Even if I don’t like seafood!

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been dink­ing around on sev­er­al wips. I know, I know, I need to focus on one! But back in the old days when I used to write, this worked well for me, so I guess I need to quit ques­tion­ing it and just go with the flow.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I can’t get enough of this song by Ush­er. I love that he’s gone back (kin­da-sor­ta) to his R&B roots with this.

That dude can dance. (rawr)

Back­list News ~ Olivi­a’s Col­lec­tion is now FREE on many sites (give Ama­zon time, it should even­tu­al­ly kick in there too.) Three novel­las for one no price!

Tweet of the Week ~

Just had 4 Dos Equis. For those of you that are not bilin­gual, that’s 8 Equis.

— Wade (@TheWadest) June 3, 2014

Indus­try News ~ So by now you’ve prob­a­bly heard about dis­pute between the world’s third-largest pub­lish­er Hachette and Ama­zon, with the lat­ter mak­ing many of the for­mer’s books either unavail­able or very slow in arriv­ing. I believe the issue is a lot more com­plex than I can under­stand, so I won’t try to unrav­el it here. There are sev­er­al very good edi­to­ri­als out there on the sub­ject if you’re in the mood to Google or Bing. Also this past week, the online mag­a­zine SLATE pub­lished an arti­cle sham­ing adults who read YA (Young Adult). You can imag­ine the back­lash from that. Can you imag­ine feel­ing shame for read­ing Har­ry Pot­ter!? Ridiculous.

What I’m read­ing ~ I’ve read sev­er­al books since we last spoke (sor­ry!) I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing The Riv­er Lei­th. Blurb: After an injury in the ring, ama­teur box­er Lei­th Wenz wakes to dis­cov­er his most recent mem­o­ries are three years out of date. Unmoored and strug­gling to face his new real­i­ty, Lei­th must cope anew with painful rev­e­la­tions about his fam­i­ly. His broth­er is there to sup­port him, but it’s the unfa­mil­iar face of Zach, a man intro­duced as his best friend, that pro­vides the calm he craves. Until Zach’s pres­ence begins to stir up feel­ings Lei­th can’t explain…

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Com­pa­ny Ink by Olivia Brynn (HEY! This is in that free col­lec­tion I men­tioned above!)

Sud­den­ly Sid­ney felt very naked. Heat burned her cheeks and she squeezed her thighs togeth­er before fum­bling to latch her bra. She had three but­tons on her blouse secured before he took both of her wrists in his hands.

“Hey, hey…don’t go shy on me now.” He moved back between her dan­gling knees.

She forced her­self to look up at him. Grant Porter. Her boss. The man she’d have to report to on Mon­day with a sta­tus update on the pri­or week. The man who would give her annu­al per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion in front of the com­pa­ny CEO in three months.

Grant Porter. My lover.

She swal­lowed. As con­fu­sion and mis­giv­ings fair­ly oozed from her pores, he stood star­ing down at her with the most car­ing expres­sion she’d ever seen on a man. She licked her lips to moist­en them, and again when she tast­ed him there.

“Don’t tell me you already regret this. I’d hate it if you start­ed feel­ing uncom­fort­able around me.” He linked their hands togeth­er and squeezed. “Tell me. If I made a wrong move, tell me now. I’ll try to make it right. I can’t lose you. Not as a man­ag­er, not as a friend.” He low­ered his chin to pierce her with his intense gaze. It was the same expres­sion that had made her quiver in the seat just a few feet away ear­li­er today. “Not as a lover.”

That’s it for me this week! I’ve com­mit­ted to being bet­ter at this blog­ging thing, so expect anoth­er sta­tus update next week from both Dee and me. Have a great weekend!